U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lifted the visa ban on the European theoretician of radical Islam and virtuoso Jew-baiter, Tariq Ramadan, allowing him to take up a position similar to that he was offered at Notre Dame University, but which was filled because of his unavailability. At the same time, a U.S. entry prohibition against a South African leftist, Adam Habib of Johannesburg University, was voided. The decision to admit Tariq Ramadan is profoundly wrong. Adam Habib is an innocuous figure. Tariq Ramadan is not. Ramadan was first barred from the U.S. in 2004 ... the denial of...

Rising Star Cave, South Africa (CNN)When an amateur caver and university geologist arrived at Lee Berger's house one night in late 2013 with a fragment of a fossil jawbone in hand, they broke out the beers and called National Geographic. Berger, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, had unearthed some major finds before. But he knew he had something big on his hands. What he didn't know at the time is that it would shake up our understanding of the progress of human evolution and even pose new questions about our identity. Two years...

September 10, 2015 JOHANNESBURG—The discovery of a new species of human relative was announced today (Sept. 10) by the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), the National Geographic Society and the South African Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation (DST/NRF). Besides shedding light on the origins and diversity of our genus, the new species, Homo naledi, appears to have intentionally deposited bodies of its dead in a remote cave chamber, a behaviour previously thought limited to humans. The finds are described in two papers published in the scientific journal eLife and reported in the cover story of the October...

The body of a suspected stowaway was found atop an office building in West London on Thursday, and is believed to have plunged around 1,400ft from a Boeing 747 as it approached Heathrow Airport. Meanwhile, another man is in critical condition in hospital after being discovered an hour earlier in the undercarriage of the aircraft — British police are investigating both incidents. The survivor is believed to have climbed aboard the British Airways plane at OR Tambo International airport in Johannesburg before traveling over 8,000 miles from South Africa, largely in temperatures as low as -81 Fahrenheit on the 10-hour...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — As schools reopen here in the coming days after the Christmas break, South Africans are braced for a surge in the power cuts that have plagued the country since early December, and the rolling blackouts could spell trouble for the ruling African National Congress at the ballot box. During the week, schools, factories and offices will move to full capacity, drawing on an already-fragile national grid. And in the heat of the Southern Hemisphere summer, air conditioners will be turned on full blast. A state-owned company, ESKOM, has the monopoly to produce more than 95 percent...

The Zulus call it eGoli – Place of Gold – for in 1886, the coveted metal was found in abundance on the Witwatersrand, the inland ridge on which Johannesburg lies. The promise of instant fortunes catalysed the largest, most rapid urban migration in southern African history. Earth’s bounty crowned rand lords, and also birthed a vast apparatus of economic exploitation. Yet for most Jews, the story of their predecessors began not in gold speculation, but pogroms in Eastern Europe. Thousands fled in ships bound for Africa’s tip, and many came to call the City of Gold home. Welcome to Jewburg...

An international incident was touched off yesterday in Johannesburg, South Africa, when a goodwill appearance by President Obama was interrupted by an impromptu funeral. Mr. Obama was generously posing for souvenir pictures of himself with fawning admirers at the FNB Stadium (Soccer City), when security people rolled in Nelson Mandela's casket and demanded to have a memorial service. When questioned as to why they were disrupting Mr. Obama's appearance, the security men offered no explanation aside from "we reserved the stadium last week for this." "This kind of thing is a constant problem for Mr. Obama" said one of his...

Speaking at a town hall event in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday, President Barack Obama claimed that “the planet will boil over” if everyone has access to air conditioning, automobiles and big houses. That is, unless the world finds “new ways of producing energy,” he said. “Ultimately, if you think about all the youth that everybody has mentioned here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over — unless we find new...

It is a Thursday afternoon at a busy intersection in Johannesburg's Bryanston district. The traffic robot turns green and the white Mercs and BMWs, four-wheel-drives and the occasional pick-up truck, with a black family's whole world piled on to the tailgate, pull away from the lights. Not far off are the gleaming towers of Sandton, a symbol of South African prosperity and an area where great wealth can be glimpsed, albeit behind electric fences and razor wire. The majority of up-market cars are still driven by middle- and upper-income whites, but many belong to the growing class of wealthy blacks....

80 percent of New York City high school students seem to have some trouble reading, but Mayor Bloomberg has no time for them. He’s too busy dealing with serious issues, like soda sizes, gun control in Illinois and the impending destruction of the planet. A summit of city mayors will convene in February of next year in Johannesburg, to discuss ways to fight global climate change. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who serves as chairman of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, said, “Cities around the world… are taking meaningful actions that have quantifiable outcomes… we are having a real impact combating...

<p>Now as the city celebrates its 125th birthday, creative South Africans are seeing gold in warehouses and cheap office space, and they're revitalizing neighborhoods with galleries, museums, shops, studios, clubs and restaurants.</p>
<p>JOHANNESBURG - (AP) -- Johannesburg dates its beginnings to the discovery of gold in 1886. Its downtown, where skyscrapers tower over deep mines, was abandoned by business in recent decades, and squatters turned the office towers into high-rise slums. But now, as the city celebrates its 125th birthday, creative South Africans are seeing gold in warehouses and cheap office space, and they're revitalizing neighborhoods with galleries, museums, shops, studios, clubs and restaurants.</p>

A VILE Facebook campaign to incite race hate ahead of the World Cup in South Africa in June is being investigated by police. The official probe was launched into a group set up by alleged supporters of firebrand politician Julius Malema. One entry, emailed to football fans around the world, calls for the “rape and slaughter” of whites and

Johannesburg - Attackers set a wooden house on fire on a farm near Carolina at the weekend, while a woman and her children were still inside. The armed attackers had tied the door with a piece of wire, trapping the victims inside. The woman's parents were shot at when they rushed to their aid. "They were bent on killing us. This had nothing to do with theft," ... She woke up to the smell of smoke at about 22:00 on Saturday night. She saw the wall and the curtain in her room were in flames. The attackers had poured diesel...

Entire South African Airways crew arrested for drug smuggling - TWICE in one month By SAM GREENHILL 17th February 2009 The entire crew of a South African Airways flight has been arrested on suspicion of drug smuggling - for the second time in a month. Fifteen members of the flight crew, including the pilot, were detained yesterday at Heathrow airport after customs officers found five kilos of cocaine in a bag. They were being held by officers after the class A drug, with an estimated street value of £250,000, was discovered as the crew tried to clear customs following a...

A team of gunmen shot and killed Lucky Dube, an international reggae star and one of the nation’s best-known musicians, apparently in a carjacking attempt late Thursday that underscored the continuing peril of violent crime here. As the provincial police commissioner appointed seven veteran investigators to chase down the attackers, President Thabo Mbeki called on the nation “to confront this terrible scourge of crime, which has taken the lives of too many of our people, and does so every day.” The police said Mr. Dube, 43, was shot by three assailants in Rosettenville, just south of downtown Johannesburg... The attackers...

Police say security at the Johannesburg International Airport is up to standard, despite this weekend's massive robbery and several robberies taking place over the last four years. "The security at the airport has always been exceptionally good. This is something that we are trying to understand how these people got in and it will continue to be safe as it was in the past," says Vish Naidoo, a police spokesperson. Other reports say officials have not ruled out the possibility of an inside job. Armed with automatic weapons, including AK-47 rifles, a gang of men managed to rob a...

A four-year-old boy died after he was brutally assaulted when he refused to call his mother's lesbian lover "Daddy", The Star newspaper reported on Thursday. Jandre's mother, Hanelie Botha (31), and her partner Engeline de Nysschen (33) appeared in the Vereeniging Regional Court on Wednesday and were found guilty of the boy's gruesome murder. His father, Jan, sat in court holding the hands of his fiancée, Yolanda Deysel, and listened attentively to Magistrate Rita Willemse, who in her judgement, accepted evidence that among the reasons that led to Jandre's brutal ordeal was his refusal to call De Nysschen "Daddy", the...

Johannesburg is one of three cities worldwide to bid for the hosting of the 2010 Gay Games, the special "Olympics" for gays and lesbians. A special Bid Committee has been established in the city, with the support of South Africa's government. The other bidders are Cologne and Paris. According to a statement released by the San Francisco-based Federation of Gay Games, groups in Cologne, Johannesburg and Paris have submitted letters of intent to bid for the eighth Gay Games in 2010. The site selection process is to culminate with selection of the host in November this year, the Federation says....

"Why didn’t you mention that Suez is run by the Montreal-based Power Corporation through Pargesa--Saddam’s and the Ba’ath Party investment bank in Geneva, when you wrote about thirsty children in the shantytown of Alexandra, Africa?" colleague David Hawkins wanted to know after reading last week’s Canada Free Press cover story, Johannesburg then and now. Hawkins, Foundation Scholar-Cambridge University and founder of the Citizens Association of Forensic Economists at Hawk’s CAFÉ, misses nothing when it comes to forensic research. Johannesburg then and now recounted the tragedy of the desperate youngsters from nearby shantytowns who lined up for water at standpipes as...

Just as desperate kids in nearby shantytowns lined up for water at standpipes as Earth Summit delegates converged upon Johannesburg in 2002, H20 is still a scarce commodity in the region. According to the London Sun, 80,000 bottles of mineral water quenched the thirst of 60,000 delegates to the Johannesburg Earth Summit on Sustainability. While the delegates from 182 countries have long since gone home, the children of Alexandra, a shantytown just down the road from the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Sandton, still go thirsty. Chronicled in the Corporate Watch video, White Gold, Alexandra is "a settlement of largely self-built...

Mandela announces son died of AIDS 01-06-2005, 14h06 Nicolas Asfouri - (AFP/Pool/File) JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela said Thursday that his son Makgatho had died of AIDS. "We have called you today to announce that my son has died of AIDS," Mandela told reporters gathered Thursday at his Johannesburg home just hours after his only surviving son passed away. Makgatho Mandela, 54, had been in intensive care for the past weeks, but no details were released about his condition.

The U.S. is engaged in a bloody war in Iraq for the purpose of eliminating the remnants of a terrorist regime, foreign terrorists, and bringing democracy to Iraq and the region. It is a big gamble that has put radical Islam on the defensive around the world. But shocking evidence demonstrates that controversial former U.S. Marine and former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who now writes for the anti-American Arab "news" organization Al Jazeera, was involved in a controversial effort to stop the war by enlisting prominent personalities in a "peace" campaign.

The security alerts in the US and the UK have also reverberated in South Africa because Pakistani police have raised the possibility that al-Qaida supporters were planning terrorist attacks in Pretoria and Johannesburg. Two South Africans of Asian descent were arrested during the 12-hour gun battle with Pakistani police in the eastern city of Gujrat that led to the capture of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Gujrat's police chief, Raja Munawar Hussainl, alleged yesterday that the two South Africans - Zoubair Ismail, 20, an Islamic student, and...

Johannesbnurg - The government was urged on Tuesday to help two South Africans being detained in Pakistan on suspicion of being recruits of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. A Pakistani official said Abu Bakar and Zubair Ismail had told interrogators they had planned to attack tourist sites in Johannesburg. Last week, the foreign affairs ministry named the two men as Feroze Ganchi, a medical doctor from Fordsburg, Johannesburg, and 20-year-old student Zubair Ismail, from Laudium, Pretoria. The Media Review Network, an advocacy group which aims to dispel myths and stereotypes about Islam, urged the government and human rights organisations to...

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe has seized a U.S.-registered cargo plane with 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities and a cargo of "military material", Home Affairs (Interior) Minister Kembo Mohadi said on Monday. "A United States of America-registered Boeing 727-100 cargo plane was detained last night at about 19:30 hours at Harare International Airport after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew," Mohadi said in a statement.

Anyone who believes that Israeli-Palestinian relations can be compared to the South Africa's former apartheid system is making a false comparison, a South African legislator said in Jerusalem this week. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe, a black South African parliament member and leader of the fastest growing political party, the African Christian Democratic Party, said he sees no evidence of apartheid in Israel. "If anybody says to you that there's apartheid in Israel, tell them that the man that was oppressed under apartheid from South Africa says that's a big lie," said Meshoe. "Apartheid was based on the color of our skin,"...

Hi all, I'm taking Environmental Science and, naturally, the teacher is a strong leftist. Today she told us that "President Bush didn't attend the Johannesburg Summit [on global environmental issues] and sent Colin Powell instead. These are things you should consider when you vote." I'm looking for articles or op-eds that rationalize Bush's non-attendance or reveal some of the anti-Americanism that was present at the meeting. Thank you in advance for all info. -sdk

<p>WASHINGTON - From Aug. 26 through Sept. 4, over 4,000 official delegates, some 3,000 activists from non-government organizations and heads of state from 100 countries have met at the U.N. Sustainable Development Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. The conference was billed as the largest event the United Nations has ever staged, meant to tackle the largest problem the modern world has ever faced: economic development. Yet the entire venture can be summed up in one word: redistribution.</p>

<p>JOHANNESBURG, South Africa A surprising story dominated the U.N. sustainable development summit in South Africa. Unlike other huge environmental meetings, Johannesburg has become suffused with the theme that wealth makes health - or, more specifically, that it is economic growth that leads to a cleaner, safer environment.</p>

US Committed to Development, says Powell Amid Boos at Johannesburg Summit Colin Powell U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has told the World Summit on Sustainable Development that the United States is committed to development. But not all the delegates welcomed Mr. Powell's remarks. Mr. Powell was repeatedly interrupted by boos and heckling from a generally hostile crowd, especially when he spoke about the sensitive issues of climate change, energy policy, and genetically modified food. Heckler is removed from conference by security guards "The United States is taking action to meet environmental challenges, including global climate change. We are committed-...

<p>At the World Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, where it's apparently great sport even for Americans to take whacks at the United States and its supposed neglect of underdeveloped countries, U.S. representatives have finally started fighting back.</p>
<p>They have pointed out, for instance, that the United States gives more money to poor countries than any other nation and, even more important, imports more goods from them, The Associated Press says.</p>

JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 19 A South African teenager who made headlines after saying he had been kidnapped from white parents and raised as a herd boy in a black rural township was never part of a white family, a court ruled today. The Bronkhorstspruit magistrate's court did say that the teenager, Happy Sindane, may have had a white father, according to report by the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The teenager, who is light-haired and pale-skinned, turned up at a police station on May 19.

It was trade and transnational corporations versus the environment at the recent Rio Plus Ten World Summit on Sustainable Development here, and the green groups, complain their supporters, came out on the short end of the stick. When the world gathered in Johannesburg a few weeks ago for the conference, the world's major environmentalist groups and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) believed they would make major gains in their respective agendas. However, now that the dust has settled, it would appear that the world's most powerful corporations have cemented their agenda of promoting trade, while the concerns of environmentalists – both radical...

Corinne Thatcher is a junior majoring in Latin American studies and a Collegian columnist. Her e-mail address is cet131@psu.edu. It seems as if President Bush has found a new cause to distract television viewers from the heated political commentary that has besieged the issue of Iraq. In a speech Tuesday, Dubya spoke with incredulity about the lack of knowledge U.S. students have about their nation's history. He expressed amazement, for example, at the fact that the average student doesn't know that James Madison was instrumental in drafting the U.S. Constitution -- though I cannot help but wonder whether he...

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, some 60,000 delegates from around the globe met together to solve the problems of poor nations. While they were pondering what to do about world hunger, they made sure that they themselves would not go hungry. The chef of the five-star Michelangelo Hotel, where the VIPs stayed, told Neil Syson of the British tabloid The Sun how he had stocked 1,000 pounds of lobster, 5,000 oysters, more than two tons of steak, 450 pounds of salmon, and half a ton of bacon and sausages. Not to mention thousands of...

There was a great scene last month - great for Canada - at the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. There was our prime minister, being wildly cheered by all those Third World delegates, mostly from African nations. Was Jean Chretien afraid of the Americans? He was not. His country was right under their noses. That didn't matter. He would defy them. He would sign the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gas emissions before the year was out - with or without the consent of the province that would almost singly have to bear the effect of what he...

CLEAN WATER, CLEAN air and the alleviation of poverty were among the goals discussed at the 2002 Johannesburg Summit, held from August 26 to September 4. They sound like worthwhile endeavors. Who would argue that a decrease in air and water pollution and an increase in the per-capita wealth of the poor aren’t laudable goals? Unfortunately, the majority of the attendees at Johannesburg Climate Legacy 2002 were ill suited for implementing their own agenda. They are simply nut cases, whose ideas are so far-fetched most of them should be ignored. Carbon dioxide emissions and global warming were on everybody’s agenda....

Thankfully, the fiasco in Johannesburg is over. President Bush was right to stay home. He was also right to send determined delegates with firm instructions to thwart the ambitions of the radically green global-governance crowd. To some extent, the U.S. delegation was successful. The green crowd insisted on language in the final document that would commit the world to produce 15 percent of its energy from "alternative" sources – specifically wind, solar and small dams – by a time certain. They didn't get it. The final document language calls for nations to act "with a sense of urgency" to increase...

Is it just me or is there something ironic about a summit on sustainable development that features the leading environmental groups of the world emitting 290,000 tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Even more interesting is the fact the regional government of Johannesburg set a plan whereby the delegates could donate money to clean the environmental mess they created and only one seventh of the amount needed was donated. I have my doubts about a conference that gives Robert Mugabe a warm reception, ignoring that his regime recently killed 186 political opponents, continues to confiscate lands of white farmers...

<p>Secretary of State Colin Powell was heckled and jeered twice during his 10-minute speech Wednesday to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was easy to see why President Bush didn't go. The summit seemed to come alive only when speakers bashed America like a piñata.</p>

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has brought his personal duel with Britain to the Earth Summit. Mugabe, 78, drew applause from many of the delegates at the summit when he fired a salvo at Prime Minister Tony Blair, the sternest critic of Zimbabwe's seizures of white-owned farms. "We have not asked for any inch of Europe or any square inch of that territory so, Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe," Mugabe said in his speech to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. "We wish no harm to anyone, we are Zimbabweans, we...

Hatred of the U.S. is palpable among the various state and NGO delegations. While such hatred is prevalent in all U.N. meetings, it seems to be especially acrimonious at the World Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Most of the acrimony centers on perceived trade barriers, subsidies (especially farm subsidies) and the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol by the U.S. As the heads of state and government gather in Johannesburg, the summit was deadlocked late Friday, over 14 issues in a 70-page "Plan of Implementation," pitting the developed nations against the developing nations, and the United States against the European...

HP Supports Johannesburg World Summit 2002 as Technology Partner Sunday September 1, 9:03 am ET JOHANNESBURG, South Africa--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 1, 2002--HP (NYSE:HPQ - News) today reaffirmed its commitment to global corporate citizenship with its support and sponsorship of the Johannesburg World Summit 2002. "We are honored to be the summit's technology sponsor and to participate in dialogue among key stakeholders that focuses on leveraging the assets of both the public and private sectors to solve critical global issues," said Carly Fiorina, HP chairman and chief executive officer. "HP's global corporate citizenship objective and e-Inclusion activities resonate strongly with the themes...

This is a transcript of AM broadcast at 0800 AEST on local radio. Environmentalists express their fury at Australia AM - Saturday, August 31, 2002 8:33 HAMISH ROBERTSON: Environmentalists have expressed their fury at Australia at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Greenpeace says Australia's environmental policies are among the worst in the world. The attack came as negotiations at the summit stalled - and delegates from more than 190 countries are now running out of time to reach a compromise. Our Africa correspondent, Sally Sara reports from Johannesburg. SALLY SARA: Frustrations are spilling over as the negotiations intensify. After...

Johannesburg - African and Asian farmers, and hawkers from across South Africa handed over a "Bullshit Trophy" (yes, that is the trophy's real name) to Greenpeace, the Third World Network and BioWatch for their contribution to the "preservation of poverty" in developing countries. The trophy comprises of a piece of wood on which two heaps of dried cow-dung - "unfortunately not elephant dung" - are mounted. Barun Mitra of the Sustainable Development Network (SDN), a coalition of non-governmental organisations which believes, among other things, that sustainable development is attainable only through free trade, officiated at the symbolic handing-over in Johannesburg...

Earth Summit delegates feast while discussing starvation 27-08-2002, 11:45 The Michelangelo Hotel, South Africa Delegates to the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, who are meeting to discuss starvation and poverty, are feasting on extravagant foods and fine wines flown in from around the world. British newspaper “The Sun”, which exposed the story on Tuesday, also claimed that hundreds of trees had been cut down around the conference center to make room for limousines bringing delegates in to discuss how to prevent damage to the environment. Known as the “Earth Summit”, the UN conference opened on 26...